love

Dr. Jacques Pye is a follower of Jesus who serves Christ as an emergency room physician, husband, father of six, and a writer of Christian worldview science fiction. I invited him to share this week because I knew he’d bring a deep theological perspective to this topic. And indeed, he has. Read on:

In the liturgical church, today is Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. “Maundy” long had connotations of gloom, sadness, even despair for me until I learned that “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning “command.” At the last supper, Jesus told His disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Today is Maundy Thursday because on it, Jesus gave us the command, not the option, to love.

But why should we obey? For that matter, why should we obey any of the actions He tells us to do, such as bless those who persecute you, pray for those who mistreat you, or go and tell others about Him? We should obey because Jesus is Lord.

What is the impact of these three words: “Jesus is Lord”?

The Greek word for Lord, kurios, means master, one who has authority over someone or something. Jesus is Lord over creation and over us. Colossians 1:15-17 tells us,

“He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (NASB)

Jesus is the Lord of, the authority over, creation because He existed before creation and all things were created through and for Him. In our daily lives, we accept the proposition that the person who creates a business has the right to run the business. In a sense, the business owner is lord over the business. In the same way, though more fully, this relationship of Jesus as creator to us, His creation, gives Him the right to rule over us.

Because Jesus is Lord over us as created beings, he has a right to expect us to obey His commands and obedience ought to change how we approach all of life.

Jesus is Lord over us because He has paid the price for our redemption from sin. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and sinned in their disobedience, they, and all of us, became separated from God. But God in His love for us did not want us to stay that way. Jesus, in perfect love and union with God, came to pay the price for our sin.

In the Old Testament, a relative could redeem a Hebrew who had sold himself into slavery or who had become destitute. This person was called a kinsman-redeemer. In our natural state we need a kinsman-redeemer, because we have no way to pay the price for our sinful, rebellious nature, other than to die ourselves. Philippians 2:8-11 tells us that Jesus,

“Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (NASB)

As redeemed people, as those who have passed from darkness into light, as those who have come into the loving presence of our Savior, we acknowledge Jesus as Lord over the power of sin. Our sin. When we accept Jesus as the payment for our sin-debt to God, we accept Him as Lord and acknowledge His authority over us, his people.

Jesus is Lord. He always has authority over us as creator and as redeemer, and He always loves us. The things He asks of us, though they may be difficult at times, are for our benefit and come through His heart of love. Through His lordship over us, Jesus seeks to mold us daily into His image, an image of love vertically for God and horizontally for other people.

As you celebrate Maundy Thursday, rejoice that Jesus, who is Lord, on that night, fully cognizant of the coming horrors of His arrest, trial, and crucifixion, gave us the command to love. Go out, knowing that the One who is Lord always walks with you and enables you to love just as He loves.

There are few phrases that evoke more warmth or comfort than this one: Welcome home. In that welcome, we experience all we need. We are safe. We are loved. We belong. This was the radical contribution made by first-century followers of Jesus. Their brand of religion was so much more than a set of rules. It was a people and a place — a family and a purpose to which anyone could attach. This expression of faith in God exposed His heart for people.

In the gospel of welcome, we remember that God is for us.

Seven times in chapter 9, Luke uses the word “welcome.” He gives instructions for what to do when one is not welcome, then contrasts that with a picture of the radical welcome of the Kingdom. It isn’t a picture a first-century audience would have anticipated, nor is it the one more typical of our sermonizing about Jesus’ heart for people. It isn’t Jesus with a leper or Jesus with a woman or Jesus loving on someone no one else likes. Not this time. This time, it is Jesus with a child.

The moment comes as his followers are immaturely arguing over who is the greatest. Frankly, they sound like fifth graders in this scene. You don’t get the sense they are arguing in front of Jesus; at least they know enough not to do that. They just can’t help themselves. Likely, they were tired and impatient with one another. Someone probably called someone else out as not pulling his weight and before reason could set in, they were all one-upping each other.

Like I said, you don’t get the sense they were doing it in front of Jesus, but everything eventually ends up in front of Jesus. He knew, even if he hadn’t heard. Jesus knew their competitive, self-justifying hearts so he put a child in the midst of them and said, “Whoever welcomes this child welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes God. And you need to make a mental note here, my friends, because you don’t have the same values as the Kingdom. What I’m about to say won’t sound logical to you, but the person you least want to welcome is the person most likely being pursued by God and the time you least want to welcome them in is probably the time God is most open to using you.”

This was Jesus’ teaching on the gospel of welcome: It happens, he says, when we least expect it and often to the person we least want to welcome in.

There is one other use of the word “welcome” in Luke 9. It is in the description of Jesus heading toward Jerusalem and his death. He sent messengers into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him but the people of that town didn’t welcome him precisely because he was heading for Jerusalem and into the will of God. Hear that: the Samaritans didn’t welcome him. Samaritans … the ones Jewish people tended to avoid at all costs. Samaritans, who Jesus used in parables to talk about people we’d walk by without thinking twice about their suffering. Samaritans, whose very land a Jewish person would avoid walking on. Samaritans were the ones who didn’t welcome Jesus, a Jew, nor his followers — the very ones who’d just been arguing over who is greatest.

If we gather up all these uses of the word “welcome” in Luke 9, we get a 360-degree view of Kingdom hospitality.

Welcome people when you’re tired.

Welcome people when you’re inconvenienced.

Welcome people as a way of right-sizing your own ego.

Welcome the ones you don’t trust, don’t like, don’t value.

And don’t just welcome them with southern politeness. Learn to welcome people all the way through or as Peter would later write, love deeply from the heart.

Recognize that even when you get the welcome right, people on the receiving end of God’s grace might not appreciate it. Sometimes the “Samaritan” won’t return the kindness, but don’t let that stop you from heading into the will of God. Don’t let your welcome ride on their response.

Hear that: Don’t let your welcome ride on their response.

That may be something you need to hear as you begin your week. You may already be tired before you’ve even gotten started, and you just don’t see the need to give more than the minimum. Maybe you don’t realize that the problem is less the other person’s distastefulness and more your ego. You may be oblivious to the callouses building on your heart toward those who matter most to God. Or it just may be that you’re giving and giving, and those on the receiving end ought to appreciate it … but they don’t.

And to you, however you find yourself today, Jesus would say: Don’t let your welcome ride on your circumstances, on your ego, or on their response. Let your welcome ride on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Welcome others into your life because Christ has welcomed you.

” … speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ …” – Ephesians 4:15

This line in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus should come with sound effects, like a siren or an alarm. Something to warn you it’s coming so you can duck. This line is a revolution in twenty-one words. A trumpet blast announcing the charge on my immaturity and yours.

Speak truth in love, Paul says, like anyone even knows what that means any more. We’ve become so used to spin, which is incredibly detrimental to real community. We’ve learned to couch everything for personal gain, so that the norm for public discourse is much more argument than advocacy. More about my own provision and protection than the common good.

So much public discourse in this season is flatly immature and appeals to the most childish side of us. It appeals to our fears and encourages emotional reaction. It goads us into personal attacks and stifles the prophetic voice. Meanwhile, real truth wrapped in real love requires real trust and real maturity. Does Paul not get that?

Do I?

Grow up in every way, he presses. Every way. Not just the convenient ways — the places where it is more fun to be of age than not — but in every way. In speech and silence, in public and private, in submission and responsibility. In love, power and self-discipline. Maybe especially self-discipline.

In other words, Paul counsels, act like adults. Which flies in the face of so much that comes at us from every other direction. We’re encouraged to pander to our inner child, to coddle his or her pain beyond good sense, to keep putting Spiderman band-aids on gaping childhood wounds so we never actually have to heal. We are encouraged to a state of arrested development, spending far more time accommodating the child we used to be than encouraging the adult we can become.

It is time to grow up, Paul says. Heal. Move on. We will never get to the richness that is the good life if we never challenge ourselves to maturity.

In Peter Scazzero’s book, The Emotionally Healthy Church, he talks about how common it is to find immaturity in leadership, so that we’ve learned to accept that:

You can be a dynamic gifted speaker for God in public and be an unloving spouse and parent at home.

You can function as a church council member or pastor and be unreachable, insecure, and defensive.

You can memorize entire books of the New Testament and still be unaware of your depression and anger, even displacing it on other people.

You can fast and pray a half-day each week, for years as a spiritual discipline and constantly be critical of others, justifying it as a discernment.

You can lead hundreds of people in a Christian ministry while driven by a deep personal need to compensate for a nagging sense of failure.

You can be outwardly cooperative at church but unconsciously try to undercut or defeat your supervisor by coming habitually late, constantly forgetting meetings, withdrawing and becoming apathetic, or ignoring the real issue behind why you are hurt and angry.

Scazzero says we’ve come to expect these things in the community of Jesus. We’ve normalized the unhealthy. In fact, in his rants about spiritual leadership in the first century, Jesus himself called these very behaviors roadblocks to God’s Kingdom (see Matthew 23:13).

That’s quite a charge. A roadblock that stops my growth is bad enough, but roadblocks are not discerning. What I’ve done to block my own growth may end up blocking the spiritual maturing of others. My refusal to grow up in every way into Him, who is my Head, can actually stunt or stop the growth of the people around me. Which is no small matter. How selfish would I have to be in order to allow that?

Don’t glide too quickly past this truth: When I refuse growth in myself, I deny growth in others. This may well be a key not only to unlocking your own way forward, but also to finding more wholesome, productive place within the community of faith.

Who knew that growing up could be such a revolutionary act?

What evidence do the people closest to you have that there is actually an adult living in your adult-sized body? What evidence do your Facebook friends have that you’re a mature follower of Jesus? What would you have to relinquish in order to grow up in every way into Him, who is your Head?

Maybe you heard the story about a gang of teenage elephants who went on a killing spree. The elephants were all male, all orphaned, transferred to a game park with no adult elephants in residence. Without adults in the mix, the teenage elephants matured sexually far too soon. They became hostile, especially toward other species. Wardens found dead rhinos on the reserve and suspected the elephants. When a game warden went after one of them, he was killed. Desperate for a solution, someone suggested placing an adult elephant in the park — an elephant over 40. It worked. Literally overnight, the killing stopped.

The moral of the story? Sometimes you need an old guy in the mix to restore sanity.

Our culture places a premium on youth, but what if the culture has it wrong? What if God has designed the generations, not to compete or to place a preference on youth, but to need each other? What if the value of one age depends on what is poured in by the generation before?

Only 2 in 10 Americans under 30 believe attending a church is important or worthwhile (an all-time low).

59 percent of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.

35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance, believing the church does more harm than good.

Millennials are the least likely age group of anyone to attend church (by far).

Eaton goes on to list nine reasons why he believes these statistics are our reality and perhaps surprisingly, he doesn’t touch on the notion that church isn’t “relevant” enough. Instead, he challenges the church toward more authentic leadership and relationship, and less companyspeak. His ninth reason sums it up: “People in their 20s and 30s are making the biggest decisions of their entire lives: career, education, relationships, marriage, sex, finances, children, purpose, chemicals, body image. We need someone consistently speaking truth into every single one of those areas.”

In other words, from the pen of a millennial, the elephants have it right. Eaton goes on,

“Millennials crave relationship, to have someone walking beside them through the muck. We are the generation with the highest ever percentage of fatherless homes. We’re looking for mentors who are authentically invested in our lives and our future. If we don’t have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon from [on] the couch (with the ecstasy of donuts and sweatpants)?”

The message I get from this word is that the key to vibrant, life-giving ministries is not a preference for youth but an investment in intergenerational relationships. If you want your church to have the vitality and influence of young minds, young faith, young energy, and young joy, then invest spiritually mature adults with a passion for pouring into young lives. Give spiritually mature adults a vision for seeing their age as a calling. In fact, I’d argue that this is the greatest gift of eldership: it is in shepherding the next generation. Elders must learn to listen and shape and young adults must be bold in seeking out older adults who can shape them.

Christopher Goss (student pastor at Mosaic and a millennial himself) says that while the culture tends to idolize youth, the Kingdom values generational thinking. Here is his advice to adults and students alike:

“Choose a life path that allows growing old to be synonymous to growing wise. Taking your discipleship seriously every day is like filling your heart with more and more treasure that you are able to give away. Jesus talked about teachers of the law who had come into the kingdom were like owners of a house who bring out treasures that are old as well as new. If this is your focus there can be a joy in growing older, instead of a fear of losing your physical beauty or losing the “good ol days.”

That advice is supported in the scriptures. After King David died — whose lineage brought God’s Messiah to earth — his son Solomon took over the throne of Israel, married an Egyptian woman and began to rule. One day, God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon answered by telling God how good he’d been to his family, and how humbled he was at the prospect of being king. And then he said, “But I’m only a child and do not know how to do this. You’ve given me a huge job, so give me wisdom to match. Teach me how to judge between right and wrong; otherwise, how can I do this big thing?” And God was pleased with what Solomon asked for. He said, “Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, possessions or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give you wealth, possessions and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have.”

And with that request, a young king became wise and a nation became great.

Don’t pray for God to make you young again, or healthy or wealthy or beautiful or safe. Pray for God to make you wise. Because the pursuit of youth just for youth’s sake … well, that is an idol.

Statistical quotes are from: Eaton, Sam. “59 Percent of Millennials Raised in a Church Have Dropped Out—And They’re Trying to Tell Us Why.” Web: FaithIt. Posted on April 4, 2018

That strain we feel — like we’re walking against the tide — has an explanation. We are all trying to get back to the other side of Genesis 3. We are all straining toward our created design.

On the other side of the fall line, relationships are transparent, we serve one another well, and dysfunction is not even in the vocabulary. So we will recognize that glorious world when we get to it, what if we were to practice a little Genesis 2 living now?

Here are a few ideas:

Stop being polite.

If you want to release some sanity into your life (and into the lives of those around you), stop being polite and start speaking from a deeper place of love and prophetic imagination. As southern as I am, I’m pretty convinced that southern politeness is not a feature of holy living. I’m not talking about common courtesy, or even the kind of patience that endures rude people in a store. I’m talking about the difference between the kind of politeness that works against deep love. Deep love will always lead us toward truth; southern politeness will often lead us away from it.

When we learn to be both gracious and honest with one another, we stifle the enemy’s options for control. When we learn to speak prophetically into each other’s lives (honestly, hopefully, spiritually), we release the Holy Spirit to move and create both transformation and trust. Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Whatever you release on earth will be released in heaven …”

Don’t tolerate crazy.

Think about how it would impact your relationships if you refused to keep tolerating other people’s crazy. You’d stop letting people cancel on you at the last minute. You’d have no tolerance at all for passive aggression (which I believe is straight from the enemy of our soul). You’d expect people to honor your time as you honor theirs. You wouldn’t let folks chronically complain about situations without challenging them to move forward. And when others are letting “crazy” make their decisions, you wouldn’t let southern politeness rob them of your deep concern for them. Doesn’t that sound like a much more sane way to live?

Hear me on this: Care what happens to other people. Care deeply. Let your heart be broken for other people. But don’t tolerate crazy. Genuine, mature compassion will always cause us to care enough about a person’s sin that we’re motivated not to let them stay there. Love without accountability is a socially accepted form of abuse that malforms people spiritually.

Stop making excuses.

Paul the Apostle announced more than once that he was focused on the future. He’d say, “Forgetting what is behind (I strain) toward what is ahead …” That is a great mental posture to take toward life. “Forgetting what lies behind” is refusing regret a voice in our life. “Straining toward what is ahead” is putting processes in place that allow room for new habits. Straining toward what is ahead is deciding that what we thought was inconceivable is actually doable so we set goals, then we get accountability so we can stay with those goals.

Accountability is committing to transformation. After all, Jesus didn’t come into his ministry saying, “Talk about your junk and believe, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” He said, “Repent and believe.” In other words, own your junk and move on.

Decide not to be lazy.

I don’t know who said it first, but I like this: “Discipline is choosing between what I want now and what I want most.” The answer to that inner wrestling between what we want now and what we want most is best answered with discipline. As Kevin Watson says, “Some things need to be predictable.” If what I want most requires a change in my life and a commitment to daily discipline, then I have some choices to make and the first choice may be to stop being lazy.

Stop having good ideas.

Disciplines are for people who have too many distractions, so here’s my wisdom for myself and anyone else who fits this category: stop chasing good ideas and start pursuing disciplines. Disciplines keep us from distractions that aren’t meant for us, while chasing every good idea will only keep us in mental chaos and rob us of rest.

Get yourself an external hard drive.

If you want to breed more sanity into your life, find someone who will speak prophetically (which means, “honestly, hopefully, and spiritually”) into your life. To grow spiritually, you need someone external to yourself who will not be polite, who will not tolerate your crazy, who will not ignore your lazy, who will challenge your bottomless capacity for good ideas, and who will tell you what is sane and moral and biblical.

So here’s the real point to this whole post: To breed sanity is to be disciplined, and to be disciplined is to be in community. My friends, this is how we get back to the other side of Genesis 3. We learn to lean into each other in community and we get serious about serving one other from a loving, honest, holy place.

Another guest post by Angel Davis, my friend and collaborator in ministry. In this blog she shares how her marriage was transformed by her own decision to lean in and let God transform her life. This is Angel’s testimony:

Not much gets better after 36 years, but I’m happy to say marriage has.

That was my husband, texting with his brother on our anniversary. Those fourteen words are such a sweet gift to me. They are a testimony and a miracle, because there was a time when our marriage could only get better.

About halfway into these thirty-six years, I was ready to walk. Throw in the towel. Start all over with someone new who truly loved me. Someone who would understand me, invest energy in me and help me feel secure. I was sure I would never find these things with my current husband.

I had tried and he had failed.

What stopped me from walking? In a word, Jesus, who I now understand as the author of life and love. He gave me no easy out when I begged for one. He gave me no excuses when I manufactured plenty of them. “God, I’m a counselor. I help other marriages heal and thrive. I’ve tried everything in my own, and it hasn’t worked! The only solution is to leave.”

That argument made perfect sense to me, but True Love stopped me from walking out the door. Believe me when I say that isn’t how I defined it in those days. It didn’t feel like love to me at all. In fact, it felt more like punishment and it made me angry. “Fine, I’ll stay God, and now I’ll be miserable the rest of my life.” I felt bitter, rejected, unloved, dissatisfied, not understood — all fruits of a selfish spirit. I had no idea what True Love was or where it came from.

Oh, I thought I knew! I thought I knew what love was and what “fair” was and what I needed. After all, I’m a licensed counselor! I know all these things for other people. And I’m a student of the Bible. I ought to know for myself, too … right?

What I discovered was that while I knew a lot of things in my head, I knew almost nothing in my heart, where it counts. I had not had a transformational, personal encounter with Love Himself around the issue of my marriage. I had not surrendered that to the One who changes hearts, changes perspectives, changes lives.

Eighteen years later, so much has changed. I am still married to the same man I once wanted to leave, but inside this marriage I have experienced love I never knew existed. I have a sense of security and assurance I didn’t know before, and a deep peace beyond anything I could have hoped for. There is contentment. Satisfaction. Belonging. Acceptance. This was the payoff of staying in it and working the plan from God’s angle.

How did it change? You’d think (given my own vocation) we’d immediately get into counseling, but we didn’t. I went to counseling myself for a time and that helped, but I already knew the psychological truths. Mind you, they are good and some are very powerful and beneficial in managing life and making it more tolerable. But all transforming truth ultimately comes from God. He made the heart and only He knows how to care for the heart. So the real change was a heart change. As I leaned in and listened to the Holy Spirit, what I discovered was that I didn’t so much have a marriage problem as a heart problem.

Someone had to go first and in our case it was me. According to his plan and pleasure, God chose to call me first to step up and let him change my heart. As He lovingly hemmed me in, He took me on a journey of heart transformation that changed me permanently. And that change in me brought new life to our once dead marriage.

(Side note: Dead is definitely how I saw what we had. In the season before our transformation, I had diagnosed the marriage and pronounced it dead. As a trained and licensed counselor, you would think I had the insight for that and as a spouse the “right” to it. But guess what? Only the Author of Life can decide when there is no life left. Until then, we had a responsibility to live.)

Had I moved forward with my desire to run, I grieve to think of the tragedy, devastation and lasting effect that would have had on both of us and our children. If I’d done what my selfish heart wanted, today we’d be sitting on separate aisles at our daughters’ weddings, planning separate family holidays, splitting time with grandkids. Family vacations would be near-impossible, not to mention the heart damage — resentments, bitterness, and unresolved anger rippling through the entire family. I grieve to think of our children having to navigate new relationships with their parents, losing their childhood family, finding themselves as adults craving (just as I did) security and assurance.

Those hurts don’t end in adulthood. They are lasting. The world and the enemy of your soul (who cares nothing about your kids or grandkids) will convince you everyone will get over it and be fine. And in some small percentage of cases, that may be true. It is also true that in God’s economy, nothing is lost. In His mercy He redeems everything, even the worst hurts. He can make beauty out of ashes. Divorce is not the ultimate sin.

But dear friends, listen: only God can determine life. We don’t get to decide what is dead and what isn’t. We are not wise enough, smart enough or powerful enough to make that call. No matter how many degrees or how much experience we have, we are not the Author of Life nor the fountainhead of True Love. Only God gets to make that call.

Are you struggling in your closest relationships? Are you wondering if it is time to give something up for dead? Before you make that call, will you allow the Author of marriage and the human heart to have yours today? Will you surrender your expectations and allow Him room to do the deep transformative work only He can do? Here’s the assurance: he will do it, if you allow him, because he specializes in the restoration of things … even something as difficult as your marriage.

What learned from my experience is this: It only takes one person in the hands of a loving God …

But if I’m going to blame someone, I ought to at least make sure I am blaming the right person. Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 that the real enemy of my soul is not flesh-and-blood but a power that seeks to keep me at a distance from the God of perfect love. Knowing the real enemy makes me more effective in the battle.

So what do I know about the enemy of your soul?

He is not creative. Creativity is a character trait of our Father but not of the enemy of our souls. There is no genius about him; he only knows how to mimic God just enough to deceive us. Contrary to being creative, he tends to work in very predictable, non-creative ways. He entices us with fake power, fake love, fake progress. Spiritually disconnected people will take the bait every time.

He is lazy. While our Father is dynamic (always moving, always creating, always working to transform us into his likeness), his enemy is lazy and again … predictable. The enemy’s one goal is to get all eyes off God; he will expend the least energy possible to get the job done. There is no art to his craft, no beauty. His biggest weapon is lying. He speaks lies into people’s lives and hopes for devastation or at the least, chaos.

He works within systems to generate chaos. The enemy of your soul is fond of the herd instinct. He abuses systems like racism, socialism and atheism, and even some forms of religion, but only because he has discovered that within these systems he can take down more than one person at a time. It isn’t so much that he has great forethought and strategy; he isn’t purposefully systematic. In the absence of a system, he will use whatever presents itself as most convenient but he gets big “wins” when people thoughtlessly follow the crowd.

His great lie is that there is no hope. Hopelessness is the enemy’s rearview mirror. He uses it to make us look backward while he whispers the lie that things will never get better. Hopelessness leads to fear and fear separates people from God’s love. When the enemy of your soul can get you to believe there is no hope, he gets a twofer. Hopelessness isolates in both directions. We feel isolated while others allow fear of our pain to create distance.

He breeds fear. This is the enemy’s ultimate goal — to create distance between us and God, between us and others. Fear breeds that distance. Fear kills love, so when Jesus tells us that our goal is to be made perfect in love, he is telling us that his intention is to make us stronger than our enemy. When Paul tells us that God is love and that there is no fear in love but that perfect love casts out fear, he is showing us a path to spiritual victory.

He loves the fear of conflict. One of the things he most wants us to be afraid of is conflict. It isn’t conflict itself the enemy likes. In fact, he’d rather we never raise questions, think deeply, press into issues, get passionate enough to express a dissenting opinion. Why? Because conflict has the ability to expose the glory of God.

That is so important it is worth repeating: Conflict has the ability to expose the glory of God.

I’m thinking about Moses as he crouched in the cleft of a rock, in search of a glimpse of glory in the midst of despair. Conflict reveals truth and exposes weakness and challenges us toward our destiny. A conflict well navigated breeds grace and deepens love and honor. Meanwhile, fear of conflict creates emotional distance and inhibits relational progress. Too many people who have blown up and walked away from conflict have missed great opportunities to encounter real growth. To walk through conflict maturely and with the mind of Christ is to walk through the valley of Psalm 23 to the feast on the other side.

Clearly, that is not a stroll the enemy of your soul wants you to take.

He feeds on denial. Denial holds us in a self-defensive posture. It creates an atmosphere of blame. If the enemy of your soul can’t get you to blame God, he’ll entice you to blame someone else for the things that are wrong in your life. Remember that it isn’t healthy conflict the enemy likes, but the lies that lead us to respond to conflict in unhealthy ways. Denial speaks the language of victims, the heart language of the enemy of our souls, who would rather we never learn anything from our circumstances.

He doesn’t care what you’re thinking about, as long as it isn’t Jesus. If you want to win a battle today, meditate on Jesus. Hear the wisdom of your spiritual fathers, who taught you to talk about him when you’re sitting at home or walking among others … even as you stand up to leave a room (Deuteronomy 6:8). if you want to defeat a defeating mental loop or an angry situation, refuse the voice of the enemy and allow yourself to glory in the One who loved you first and loves you most.

Don’t allow the enemy of your soul to have the last word. That privilege must always belong to Jesus.

(Two years ago, I posted a couple of blogs about talking to kids about sex. This is a revisit of those blogs, with the hope that the reminder is helpful and the subject is still relevant.)

Most of us are wimps when it comes to talking about sex in healthy ways with our kids. We are afraid we won’t know what to say or how to say it. We’re just sure we’ll mess it up as much as our parents did. We let ourselves believe the lie that since we were (let’s just say) less than angels at their age, we have no right to talk.

Of course, all those are empty excuses to avoid spiritually shaping our kids in a significant area of their development. A better option is to take the approach God took with us — talk honestly, openly and often about who we are, how we’re made and what we’re designed for.

If you’re ready to help your kids gain a biblical view of sex, start here:

1. Good sex is holy. We know this because God is holy, and God invented sex. Genesis teaches us that God cut male and female out of the same cloth, so we were created out of a kind of oneness. This is God’s design and when you know how something works, that’s empowering.

2. Good sex depends on a strong covenant. Sex is designed to be practiced inside the covenant of marriage. The basic word in this whole holy design is covenant, which is basically a solemn agreement to either hang onto or step away from something. In the case of men, women and marriage, that covenant is a solemn agreement to hang onto each other for life, and sex is the sign of that covenant. The difference between covenant and no covenant is the difference between holy and human. Sex without covenant is like putting a BMW symbol on a Ford Pinto. You may have the symbol but you don’t have the car (and the car you’ve got is likely to blow up).

3. Good sex is not shame-producing. Sex was not designed to produce shame; it was designed to generate goodness. Over and over in the story of creation, we hear that God made things that are good. Men and women are called “very good.” Genesis 2:25 says, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Sex inside of a healthy covenant relationship is designed to generate joy, not shame. Teach your kids that abuse is never acceptable, and that good sex is not shame-producing.

4. Good sex is not love-producing (but is a great response to good love). Sex does not make love; it is a response to love. And love is not an act or emotion. It is a commitment. We “make love” happen not by engaging in physical acts, but by practicing mutual submission (see Ephesians 5:21) — by practicing habits with each other like patience, kindness and humility.

5. In conversations about how our bodies work, make it clear that you are safest person to talk to. Make sure your kids know you love them and are coming at this from a place of affection, not condemnation. When you talk to your kids, make it a conversation, not a lecture.

6. Ask good questions. It is empowering. Let your kids educate you about their culture. Get in the habit of asking questions about things in their lives that aren’t familiar to you.

7. Good sex is biblical. Don’t just give your opinion; back it up. Connect with a biblical perspective. If you don’t know what you believe about something, say so. Then go find an answer you are comfortable with. Let your kids hear you say that God designed sex and made it special — so special in fact that he made rules about it. God’s plan is not designed not to suck the fun out of life — far from it — but so we will have the greatest opportunity for experiencing a joyful, rich and deep life that’s full of good love.

8. “Anything we need to talk about?” Don’t be afraid to ask this question often. Think in terms of “talks,” not “the talk.” At different ages, our kids need different information. Don’t give the Ph.D. version while your child is still in kindergarten. And don’t talk about it so seldom that it never becomes natural. Make your child’s healthy appreciation for his body part of your good parenting.

9. Good sex is ultimately about life. This is the Genesis purpose of sex. God made us to be creators, and he made sex enjoyable so we’d be drawn to it. That’s why natural curiosity is a good thing. Our job is help our kids make sense of those curiosities and channel them toward God’s good, joyful, healthy design.

10. Holy sex is good. It is not something to be afraid of (goodness, no!), nor is it something we are powerless to control. Talk to your kids about the power they have over their own lives, about the nature of true love, about the rewards of self-discipline. Talk to them about how to begin life with a holy end in mind, and about making goals that set them up to live well. And above all, model it. Because your life is the greatest lesson your kid will ever receive.

May we so live the qualities of our design — holiness, sacredness, goodness, love and life — that our kids will look at our example and say, “I want what they have.”

For more great ideas, look up A Chicken’s Guide To Talking Turkey With Your Kids About Sex.

Healthy communication is the key to growing a healthy, mature community. Good communication is also the best weapon against the enemy of our souls.

As a leader, then, it becomes a high priority for me to develop a habit of communicating in ways that foster grace, sensitivity and understanding. If I learn to do this, those around me will not only respond with good will but will hopefully adopt those habits and pass them along in their circles.

If I want to make the practice of healthy communication a priority this year in my church, home or organization, here’s where I’d start:

Say more. By some strange quirk of fate I, as a southerner, do not drink sweet tea. I only make it when family comes to my house, and then I make it poorly because my idea of “sweet” and their idea of “sweet” are worlds apart. “Good tea” by southern standards means adding more sugar than any human could conceivably consume.

What works for sweet tea works for communication. What we think of as “over-communicating” is likely the amount needed for someone to get it. Never mind what you think they need; start with what they actually need.

Affirm more. This is the pattern Paul teaches in his letters: start every conversation with affirmation. Doing this well will right-size your expectations, so you’re not constantly noticing the gap between what people are doing and what you think they ought to be doing. We can all learn to do as my mother taught and find something nice to say. In fact, we must learn to do that before we can say anything at all that will be heard.

Blast less. Blast people enough and they will stop trusting what you say. Send enough email bombs and you’ll produce someone who cringes when they see your name pop up on the screen. Yell enough and you’ll produce kids with a defensive crouch.

If you’re prone to sending angry emails or venting on social media, find a way to stop yourself. Get a system that checks your intentions. Here’s the decision I’ve made where corporate communication is concerned: I will not send any emotion by email/ text/ Facebook message/ twitter that isn’t positive and affirming and I will not communicate negativity in public (which includes Facebook and twitter). It just doesn’t seem like a mature or healthy way to get a message across. If I have serious words to share, I will always do that in person. And always covered in prayer.

Ask more questions. This ends up being a Kingdom-building habit. Far too late in life, I’ve learned that most of my frustration and miscommunication is a product of not asking enough questions before jumping to conclusions. Remember: The Kingdom of Heaven is big, hopeful and focused not on me and my feelings, but on God and His Kingdom. When I invest the time it takes to ask clarifying questions, seeking not so much “to be understood as to understand” (a prayer of St. Francis), I am reaching for God’s vision, God’s perspective, God’s Kingdom.

Finally, assume the best. In the absence of information, most folks assume the worst. That’s human nature. The nature of Christ, however, is to assume the best in others. In the absence of information, assume that those in your circles are doing the best they can, that they are not out to offend you, that they are working out their salvation daily just as you are. Give the people around you the benefit of the doubt and you’ll discover that the grace you give flows both ways.

By saying more, affirming more, blasting less and asking more questions before making assumptions, we develop a Kingdom perspective. I am convinced that healthy churches and organizations are built on a foundation of healthy communication. In a season when so much communication is destructive and negative, I challenge you to make it a priority to build an intentionally healthy system of communication that models grace, sensitivity and understanding.

This post is part three in a three-part series of thoughts about dealing with conflict in the church. In our first post, we looked at biblical stories that model healthy and redemptive responses to conflict. The second post began addressing practical ways to maturely deal with unresolved anger and conflict from a biblical place. In this post, we continue exploring ways to respond redemptively to conflict. Find the first three points in the second post.

People come and go from churches, jobs and even their own homes for as many reasons as there are people. Some reasons are valid — a geographical move, or a family circumstance — but not all reasons are created equal. Some people simply misunderstand the nature of community or the work of the Body of Christ. Some of us are self-seeking and some of us are broken. We are easily wounded, easily distracted. Many of our decisions come not from what we know about ourselves, but from what we don’t know about ourselves.

The Church of Jesus Christ has a high bar to reach in its mission. It is here among us to offer the truth of Jesus Christ, freedom from sin and the fear of death, healing of wounds, and an authentic, loving, supportive community in which our new lives can be redeemed, healed, and shaped for significance.

Only in community can we become whole and healthy, everything we were designed to be. Christianity isn’t self-serving, nor can it happen in a vacuum. Community is essential, but communities are made of people — broken, wounded, in-process people — and because of that, conflict is inevitable. Hurt people hurt people. When that happens, the best recourse is repentance and reconciliation. The only way to learn how to live in healthy community is to live through the hard times.

But what about when leaving seems the healthiest option? In our last post, I offered three places to begin. Here are three more:

4. Offer peace. “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

Bitterness chokes the Holy Spirit’s ability to move, both in individuals and in the church. No matter what the cost to our pride, schedule or plans, we are called to make peace with anyone who has hurt us or whom we have hurt. If we explore every creative opportunity that might lead to healing, God will surely bless us.

Sometimes going back is the best way to move forward. If we are still angry with someone at another church, then perhaps God is calling us go back, offer forgiveness and get closure. Even if we don’t go back to stay, it is both wise and biblical to go back and make peace. In making amends, we discover that we don’t have to keep talking about the past because we’ve made peace with it. Take the challenge to make this step for the sake of the Body of Christ. Visit during the week or call. In some positive way, let the pastor and others know you are at peace so they can move on. Paul said this was the ministry of Jesus: “He came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to you who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18).

5. Write a note of blessing. After Paul split from Barnabas, he took time in another letter to defend the work of his brother in ministry. What a positive and grace-filled act! A written word of blessing can be such healing medicine. It can remind someone we’ve loved of the good times and of the ways they contributed to our faith. When we offer grace-filled and hopeful words in an email, text or note, we create open doors for future opportunities. After all, they may need us again one day … or we may need them!

Once we’ve learned to speak positively about the congregations we leave behind, we’ve prayed through our disappointments, we’ve offered forgiveness where it was needed and extended the hand of peace, now – and only now! – we are ready to commit fully to the ministry of a new congregation.

6. Make a solid commitment to your new church. Partial or uncommitted attendance in church is not healthy or helpful.

Let me say that again: Partial or uncommitted attendance in church is not healthy or helpful. It misses the point of authentic community, which is what the Body of Christ is designed to be. Simply put, you can’t be part of a community you’re not part of.

Likewise, bouncing between churches can send negative signals and create unneeded tension. Doing so implies that my feelings are the ones that matter most and that simply isn’t part of a healthy Christian worldview. We find healing in stepping outside ourselves and becoming fully a part of the work going on around us.

So dig in. Invest in the time it takes to understand the vision of a new community of faith. Every church is unique and has a unique place in the community. We recognize that what worked in another church may not be right for this new mission. God delights in doing new things, so we want to be open to new ideas and to discovering new spiritual gifts. We must bloom where we are planted. Then when we are given a place to serve, we can support that work wholeheartedly — with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness.